Estocada

by Graham Hurley

  The moment they started moving again, Tam had recognised the logic of this grim coda to a truly miserable night. This was the way it would happen for real. In battle there’d be precious little time to think and absolutely no room for debate. You were exhausted, you hurt all over, but unless you made one final effort, you were dead. And so he got to his feet, stirred his aching limbs into a poor imitation of a jog and headed down towards the dam.

  Years later, he could still feel the ridges of the concrete through the leather soles of his boots, still tell himself not to look down at the fathomless drop, still remember the jolt of purest fear when his foot slipped on a slick of mud and his whole body lurched sideways towards the beckoning darkness, still hear the muted cheer from twenty-six exhausted recruits the moment everyone was safe on the other side.

  The CSM had doubled across with them, bringing up the rear. The young marines were still huddled together, their white faces daubed with camouflage grease. The CSM went from man to man, a hand on a shoulder, just a hint of a smile. Even now Tam could feel his presence and the inner glow that came from knowing they’d somehow passed into another place.

  Another place.

  The train had come to a stop. Grantham. The passengers on the seats opposite Tam shuffled together to make room for a clergyman who took the seat beside the window. He sat down, his suitcase stowed on the netted rack above his head, his raincoat carefully folded on his lap. A whistle blew and the train began to move. Tam stared out at the emptying platform, aware of his vision beginning to blur. It was late afternoon. The station was wreathed in smoke from the engine. Then he became aware that the clergyman was studying him with some care. He was Tam’s age, maybe slightly older.

  ‘Do you mind me asking you a question?’

  ‘Not at all.’

  ‘Has something upset you?’

  ‘No.’ Tam shook his head. ‘What gives you that idea?’

  ‘Your eyes are a little moist.’ He smiled. ‘Windows to the soul.’

  *

  As requested, Tam made contact with Sanderson from a telephone box on King’s Cross station. The train had been delayed north of Watford. It was already ten past nine.

  Sanderson supplied the name of a restaurant. Told him to take a taxi.

  ‘This late?’

  ‘This late.’

  The phone went dead. On the station forecourt Tam joined the queue for taxis. The rain had stopped now and a bitter wind was rippling the puddles at the kerbside.

  The restaurant was in Bloomsbury, barely a mile south. The menu beside the front door promised a rich assortment of offal. Tam stepped inside, glad of the warmth, aware already of Sanderson’s presence at a table towards the back of the room. With him was an older man, pale face, dark suit, waistcoat, signet ring. The two of them appeared to be sharing a joke. Sanderson looked up and gestured Tam over. A waiter took his coat and overnight case.

  ‘Name’s Ballentyne.’ The stranger was on his feet. ‘Call me Andrew.’

  He was slighter than Sanderson and a good deal older. His face was gaunt with exhaustion but there were laugh lines around his eyes and his handshake was warm. Tam wondered where he belonged in this strange new world. A colleague of Sanderson’s, perhaps? His boss? Someone from yet another corner of the intelligence world?

  Sanderson offered no clues. Tam found himself looking at a menu. The kitchen closed at ten and time was moving on.

  He settled for devilled kidneys and a medley of vegetables. It seemed Sanderson and Ballentyne had eaten earlier. Sanderson was already addressing the evening’s business exactly the way he’d done it at The Glebe House. No small talk. No polite exchange of life’s smaller courtesies. No time, as a good friend of Tam liked to say, for enjoying the view. Instead, with a sudden lift of an eyebrow, the curtest of questions.

  ‘Are we au fait with the political situation?’

  ‘Where?’

  ‘Here might be a good place to start.’

  Tam wondered whether to lie. A busy life in the depths of the Cairngorms left precious little time for keeping abreast of events in London. Should now be the moment when he made his excuses and left?

  ‘I rely on the wireless,’ he said carefully, ‘and the newspapers. Just like everyone else.’

  ‘Which newspapers?’

  ‘The Times, mainly. But to be honest, we have it delivered for the benefit of our guests.’

  ‘Shame on you.’ Ballentyne was gazing at his empty glass. ‘I use mine to light the fire.’

  ‘Me, too. Next day.’

  Ballentyne’s laughter broke the ice. He called the waiter for a couple more brandies and watching him, Tam realised that – wherever Ballentyne belonged – he probably outranked Sanderson.

  ‘Is this about politicians?’ Tam was looking at Ballentyne. ‘Only I’d hate to waste your time.’

  ‘Not at all, my friend. Our only interest in politicians is when things go wrong. Happily, left to their own devices, we can largely ignore them. They come with democracy. It’s a cross we have to bear.’

  ‘So what’s gone wrong?’

  ‘Excellent question. Very astute. Oliver?’

  Tam made a mental note of the Christian name. Sanderson was studying his hands.

  ‘You’ll understand this is strictly confidential.’ His head came up. The coldest eyes, more grey than blue. ‘Halifax was in Germany a couple of weeks ago. You may have read about it.’

  Tam shook his head. Lord Halifax was a senior member of the Cabinet, thin, horse-faced, nearly as tall as Tam. In photographs he always towered over everyone else. Even Neville Chamberlain, the Prime Minister, was dwarfed by his presence.

  ‘My father regards him with awe,’ Tam said.

  ‘For his conduct of affairs?’

  ‘For his shooting. I understand he has a withered arm.’

  ‘True.’ Ballentyne this time. ‘But that doesn’t excuse what happened in Germany.’ Halifax, he said, shared his passion for field sports with Hermann Goering. Goering, as well as raising a decent air force from the ashes of Versailles, was the Reichs-Jägermeister.

  ‘Master of the hunt?’ The translation came easily to Tam.

  ‘Exactly. This is a man who can’t resist a title, or a uniform. He’s also getting very fat, which isn’t at all the Halifax style. But our German friends think our esteemed Foreign Secretary might enjoy a couple of days in the field and they’re right. We understand he did well. In fact, better than well. What’s more alarming is what happened afterwards. Some of us have been privy to the intercepts. Oliver?’

  ‘Halifax went down to Bavaria. They made a great fuss of him, as well they might. Hitler has a place in the mountains, the Berghof. When the weather’s kind, we understand the views can be sensational.’

  ‘Halifax told you this?’

  ‘No. More to the point is what happened inside. Hitler leads a different Germany, a Germany Redux. I’m sure that won’t have escaped your attention. He’s got the place working. He’s also casting eyes at some of his neighbours. We naturally have an interest in maintaining the peace. The last war cost us all a great deal of blood and a great deal of treasure. Marching into the Rhineland we can live with. It was his in the first place and since then things have been quiet for a while. The last thing we need now is Hitler and his pals knocking the furniture around. That, in essence, is the message Halifax was supposed to deliver.’

  ‘And?’

  The two men exchanged glances, then Sanderson made room on the table as the waiter arrived with the brandies. Of Tam’s meal, there was still no sign.

  ‘When it comes to diplomacy,’ Ballentyne said carefully, ‘Hitler has his own style. To be blunt, we tend to play the gentleman. We’re used to dealing in nuance. We expect everyone else to be as understated as we are. With Herr Hitler, that may turn out to be a major mistake.’

  ‘So what happened?’

  ‘The pair of them talked about Central Europe. We have interests there and so do the Germans. Hitler believes
that language is the key to everything. If you happen to speak German, then wherever you live should belong to Berlin.’

  ‘Like Austria?’

  ‘Of course. And the Sudetenland. And parts of Poland. Versailles put bandages over bits of Europe. Hitler wants to rip them off.’

  ‘By force?’

  ‘I’m afraid so. And the sooner the better.’ Ballentyne smiled. ‘Didn’t your mother tell you that? The quicker you rip the thing off, the less it hurts?’

  Tam nodded, thinking suddenly of Gunther Nagel. Those bloody Czechs, he’d said.

  ‘Europe’s coming undone.’ Tam reached for a bread roll. ‘Is that what you’re saying?’

  ‘Indeed. Which is why our Foreign Secretary found himself up in the mountains at the Berghof.’

  The conversation, Ballentyne said, had lasted a couple of hours. Halifax, in his courtly way, had stressed the importance of leaving the post-war settlement alone. Hitler, never one to mask his ambitions, had pressed Germany’s interest in her neighbours.

  ‘Not quite our style, of course. But at least the man was honest.’

  ‘And Halifax?’

  ‘Halifax…?’ Ballentyne offered a despairing shrug. ‘Halifax was loath to upset him. Told Hitler not to ignore the possibility of treaty changes. Said that anything was possible… but not quite yet.’ He shot a look at Sanderson. ‘Am I right, Oliver?’

  ‘More or less. The phrases that matter are peaceful evolution and the passage of time. They’re both in the confidential minutes.’

  ‘So why are we so surprised?’ Tam looked from one face to the other. ‘And why does any of this matter?’

  ‘Because it’s sending the Germans exactly the wrong message. There’s a pattern here. Hitler’s a gambler. He’s always raising the stakes. He did it in the Rhineland. It turns out that a single French division could have sent him scuttling back to Berlin with his tail between his legs but that never happened. The man’s clever. He’s shrewd. He looks at us across the table and he sees what’s in our eyes and he acts accordingly. They invited Halifax over to test the water. They want Austria. They want the Sudetenland. God knows, they’re probably after the rest of Czechoslovakia as well. So who’s going to stop them? The French? They’re a basket case. A new prime minister every month and no one with any appetite for war. The British? Who knows. So Hitler decides to get Halifax across. And ask him a question or two. Put him under a little pressure. See how he reacts.’

  ‘He plays the gentleman.’

  ‘Exactly. Which is less than useful when you’re dealing with gangsters.’

  Tam’s meal had at last arrived. Ballentyne insisted he tuck in. While Tam forked the kidneys on to the bed of mashed potato he wondered how much of this conversation he could trust. The word gangster was perhaps a little excessive. It was hard to associate the likes of Gunther Nagel with Al Capone but there were moments during the industrialist’s recent stay when Tam had overheard brief exchanges between Nagel and his colleagues, companiable in-jokes that suggested they had the measure of Germany’s new masters. If that was the case, and if Hitler was as aggressive and ruthless as Sanderson and Ballentyne were suggesting, then complacency was the last thing that anyone, German or otherwise, could afford.

  ‘You think Hitler is a real threat?’ Tam was looking at Ballentyne.

  ‘I’m afraid we do, Tam. Diplomacy was invented to put people like Hitler in a box but regrettably that doesn’t appear to be working. It took him half a morning to see through Halifax, and to be frank he’ll do the same with Chamberlain. We believe Mr Hitler is a man who will stop at nothing until someone he respects, someone he believes, someone he’s afraid of, tells him no. At the moment, we’re playing by nursery rules. We believe in Nanny. We believe in the voice of reason. Hitler doesn’t. Some people, some of his own countrymen, think he’s mad. Some of these folk are kind enough to share their thoughts with us. To be blunt, they have serious concerns about their leader.’

  ‘What do they say?’

  ‘They want our help. They choose to believe that we and the French are there to keep the peace in Europe. Alas, our lordly envoy has just handed Mr Hitler the keys to the castle. Even the Germans, even Hitler, can’t believe it. So unless we table the military option, and unless we mean it, the wretched man will barge in and help himself. Sadly, it’s as simple as that.’

  ‘We go to war? For Czechoslovakia?’

  ‘We draw a line in the sand. We say so far and no further.’

  ‘You mean with regard to Austria?’

  ‘Perhaps.’

  ‘And Czechoslovakia?’

  ‘Definitely.’

  ‘And we’ll really do that? Put forces in the field? Stop him?’

  Ballentyne didn’t answer. Instead, it was Sanderson who pointed out how Britain had lowered its guard since the war, how pitifully thin our defences had become, how it might take years of heavy investment – millions and millions of pounds – to stay in step with Hitler’s Reich. The Wehrmacht and the Luftwaffe, he said, were in the rudest of health. These people couldn’t wait to test all those shiny new toys, all those impatient stormtroopers, on their immediate neighbours. While the best we could do was to despatch the likes of Halifax and cross our fingers and pray for the best.

  ‘So it’s hopeless? Is that what you’re saying?’

  ‘Not exactly…’ Sanderson glanced across the table at Ballentyne. ‘… Andrew?’

  Ballentyne, signalling again for a second brandy, took his time.

  ‘We understand you speak fluent German,’ he said at last.

  ‘That’s true.’

  ‘You have a military background. That’s important, too.’

  ‘May I ask why?’

  ‘Because we’ve taken a look at your service record. It appears you have a gift for making a wide range of friendships. In our view, that’s a talent beyond price.’

  Tam was lost. While it was true that he’d emerged from the Marines with a select circle of friends, people he’d trust with his life, he’d never regarded himself as in any way unusual. Hard physical challenges bred loyalty of a special kind. That, in Tam’s view, had nothing to do with the word talent.

  Ballentyne read the confusion on his face.

  ‘Bear with us…’ he said. ‘You relate to people easily, especially the kind of folk we might have in mind. You share with them a certain background. They’ll know that at once. They’ll sense it. On the other hand you appear to be equally at home with the other kind of people who pay you a fortune to kill things, people like Gunther Nagel. That’s unusual, believe it or not. And it’s something we’d be foolish to ignore.’

  ‘So what are you asking me to do?’

  ‘In the first place? Very little. You have a business to run. We understand your father isn’t the man he once was. We need you to go back to Scotland, to have a think about this conversation, and to be ready – we hope – to run an errand on our behalf.’

  ‘Errand?’

  ‘Let’s call it an operation.’

  ‘Alone?’

  ‘Maybe. We haven’t decided.’

  ‘When would this happen?’

  ‘Probably in the New Year.’

  ‘Where?’

  ‘Czechoslovakia.’ Ballentyne leaned forward over the table. ‘Oliver’s right, Tam. Sadly we’re under-prepared for Mr Hitler… and more to the point we know very little about the Sudetenland. We need someone with your kind of background to take a proper look. Most of the Sudetens speak German. That’s where the trouble begins. And that’s where you might lend a listening ear. We have an excellent military attaché in Prague but we need a second opinion. Does that sound something that might attract you?’

  3

  NAGASAKI, JAPAN, 22 MARCH 1938

  Oberleutnant Dieter Merz had been waiting in the garden for nearly an hour. A light snack had just arrived, presented with a smile and a delicate bow from the prettiest of the household’s three maids, but the two-day journey from Tokyo over atrocious road
s had robbed Dieter of his appetite.

  Now he put the bowl of miso carefully to one side. After nearly three months in Japan, he still found it near-impossible to fathom the tangle of tiny courtesies that governed this strange society: how to indicate respect, how to salt gratitude with something more than obsequiousness, how to avoid the million ways of giving offence. One of the older hands in newly appointed Reichsminister Von Ribbentrop’s Foreign Office in Berlin, himself blessed with perfect pre-Nazi manners, had warned of the many traps that lay in wait for the unwary Westerner. Never forget that these are an island people, he’d said. They keep foreigners at arm’s length, even when you happen to be their guest.

  And so it had proved. After an elaborate round of largely pointless meetings in Tokyo with middling figures in the Japanese military, Dieter had been despatched down here, to the city of Nagasaki on Kyushu Island, to spend a little time with a fighter pilot his own age. Seiji Ayama had just returned from an attachment to a squadron tasked with escorting Mitsubishi bombers attacking targets on the Chinese mainland after the Japanese invasion. Details had been hard to come by but intelligence contacts in the Abwehr had briefed Dieter that the Japanese were having a hard time against the Chinese air force. The Chinese flew the Russian I-16, the deadly little rata, and after his year in Spain, battling against exactly the same fighter, Dieter was keen to compare notes.

  ‘You don’t like the soup?’ A woman’s voice. In heavily accented but grammatically perfect German.

  Dieter half-turned on the bench, shading his eyes against the brightness of the spring sunshine. She was tall for a Japanese, and slim. Every woman he’d met in Japan had bowed as a gesture of introduction. No bow.

  Dieter struggled to his feet. Offered a name. Apologised for not finishing the soup. The woman was watching him with interest.

  ‘You have a problem? Here?’ She touched her own back below the waist.